A deeply personal account of an American Jew's relocation to the Holy Land from "one of Israel's best-informed and most astute journalists" (Chicago Jewish Star). What makes a young American Jew who was never encouraged to move to Israel--whether by individuals or in an organizational framework--suddenly decide to do so at age twenty-eight? How does a young American Jewish family, with little background in Hebrew, make its way in a new, highly distinct culture with no more than a shallow resemblance to America's?

This memoir traces the unlikely emergence in its author of a fascination, a passionate concern, and an identification with Israel that left him no choice but to relocate there. On the one hand, his parents were Austrian Jewish refugees from Nazism; on the other, the family moved to what was then a rural area of New York State where almost no other Jews lived--resulting in a richly complex, albeit confusing and difficult, identity to navigate. Israel Odyssey opens a window on modern Israel as seen by an immigrant both deeply patriotic but, at the same time, carrying cultural baggage from across the ocean. P. David Hornik's highly personal story is his quest for inner peace and fulfillment amid the pressures, strife, and special vitality of the old-new Land.